Online car marketplace FinanceAcar has closed a venture funding round led by private equity firm Anthemis Group and several angel investors.

The London business, which was a winner of start-up incubator Seedcamp’s European programme last year, enables car buyers to compare prices for a new car online. It was founded by experienced website developers and entrepreneurs Mark Peatey and Nadim Saad.

The funding round attracted the support of Dominic Collins, the former group director of Autotrader and current chief executive of Orange Digital, and serial angel investor Christoph Janz, who built one of Europe’s first European price comparison websites. Collins and Janz have joined FinanceAcar as advisers and Anthemis partner Sean Park has joined the company’s board as an observer. Financial details have not been disclosed.

Saad, a director of the company, says the business will target the 80 per cent of people who buy a car based on a monthly finance budget. In addition to offering style and price comparison, the website allows consumers to apply for finance online, and if approved, have the car delivered by a dealer to their door.

Saad tells GrowthBusiness, ‘We have grown significantly since Seedcamp and we’ve become one of the key destinations for car finance in the UK – ahead of Autotrader or Moneysupermarket in Google rankings for ‘car finance’.’

Park of Anthemis adds, ‘The car industry is one of the last offline bastions yet to offer a full online buying journey to the mass market. This is because people have always been forced to shop based on a list price even though as much as 80 per cent of them actually want a monthly price based on finance.’

Anthemis is a Luxembourg-headquartered firm that invests in growth-stage companies in financial services, markets and technology.